Image – American Ashtray Depicting Tojo Hideki as a Rat

American Ashtray Depicting Tojo Hideki as a Rat Page 837

Chapter 24

American Ashtray Depicting Tojo Hideki as a Rat

“The only good Jap is a dead Jap.”  Though American war propaganda vilified all of the Axis powers as sadistic and cruel, the most negative treatment was reserved for the Japanese.  They typically were portrayed as sub-human.  This ashtray shows Japan’s war leader Hideki Tojo as a rat that should be exterminated. 

Questions for Analysis

1. Germans were often portrayed in American propaganda as Huns or apes, but Japanese were most commonly depicted as rats.  Why do you think American propagandists chose this creature to personify the Japanese? 

2. Why was an ashtray an ideal object for disseminating propaganda in World War II?   Would it be as effective today?

 
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